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It happened overnight. One morning a few years ago I woke up, stretched, and as I swung my legs over the side of the bed I felt a tug running from my hip to my ankle. That was new. That was odd. That was weird. That was age!
At some point our body tells us we need to change our game plan. For many of us that happens right around 50. In fact, for women, menopause changes the game plan significantly. Along with menopause we often notice other changes. It’s too bad this happens at the same time, overnight, but it does. We can boo-hoo and whine or we can take action. I chose action. I chose yoga!However, like most things we do when trying to make ourselves healthy I didn’t throw myself into it with vigor. I started out with good intentions but soon slacked off in favor of other things like going to work, managing my home, managing my life, and so what if I was a bit stiff in the morning? I’d be fine. Right? Wrong!
At the first sign of a body change we need to address the change and first decide if we need medical advice or if we can simply modify our lifestyle to correct the condition ourselves. I had a small dog when this first happened and I had been walking her hit or miss but started walking her more frequently to see if I could loosen up. When the stiffness didn’t subside with the increased walking I took a more serious look at yoga again.
Finally, just a few months ago (better late than never), I started a morning routine and it stuck. Now I do one of three routines every morning. But before anyone pats me on the back it’s important to note that I’m no longer working in an office with office hour constraints. Though I’m a very busy retiree I can factor in my daily exercise and yoga and dog walking now. I simply found it staggering to try to do it all when I worked. That’s not an excuse but for me it was a fact.
But that was then and this is now. Now I don’t have the same type of time issues and now I need it more than ever. So now I do it. In addition to the yoga I also walk two dogs, both rescues I adopted about the time I retired since my other little dog went to doggie heaven a year before I retired, and I also pop one of many exercise DVDs I have collected into my DVD player each day. I mix it up for variety. I exercise now more than I ever have in my entire life including my youth. That’s because it’s so important now if I want to continue being an active person.
Yoga, however, of all the exercise I do, is the absolute best for the senior body. Anyone can start a yoga program as long as they take it slow and don’t force themselves into a pretzel. There are countless levels of yoga, many different styles, and the Internet is filled with photos of correct yoga postures and helpful videos.
Correctly posturing the poses in yoga is very important along with proper breathing.
Though I do not have an instructor I do have a full length mirror (scary) and I can pause my DVD player and take a peek at myself to see how I’m doing. Sometimes I see hilarious things in that full length mirror. But yoga is very forgiving. It may take days or weeks to really master the correct posturing for a particular pose but along the way to mastering the pose the body still derives benefits from the effort.
I tried yoga in my youth and followed along with a popular TV yoga expert. I loved it but didn’t fully appreciate it like I do now. A 66-year-old body is so much more aware of itself than an 18-year-old body is. I know every muscle, every tendon, every bone in this older body and I know my limits but I also know how and when I can push myself. 18-year-olds can push as hard as they want with very little damage but it’s important for the more heavily used body to pull back a bit and move slowly into any exercise. Test the waters. Does something pinch, pull, snap, twitch, or scream? Too much! Slow down. But don’t give up. Keep going.
In fact, that’s the essence of yoga. Do yoga to keep going. So I’ve been doing the routines for the past few months and when I get up in the mornings now I literally bounce out of bed. I have no tension or tugs or pain. I can literally hop out of bed and move on with my day. After the morning coffee and animal feeding routine I head to the DVD player and start one of the routines. [Note: My newest acquisition is entitled “Fab/50-Yoga For Faboverfifty Women” with detailed instructions and wonderful videos of correct positioning which I purchased on VibrantNation.com---one for me and one for a friend.]
Over the past few months though I’ve certainly noticed great things in my ability to move about my day because of yoga I found another special aspect of daily yoga: peace of mind. When learning yoga postures it’s fairly impossible for negative thoughts or daily worries to creep into our brains. In fact, it is suggested by yoga masters to let our problems and every-day lives to go away while we practice our yoga routines. In the beginning yoga was challenging so it was easy to leave my life behind because the concentration to get my limbs and torso to cooperate was so intense. But once I got a little better at the routines I started drifting and thinking about my “to-do” list and then realized I was missing one of the most important parts of yoga: the quiet mind. So I spent the next few weeks forcing myself to only think about yoga when doing yoga. Like anything, it takes practice then it becomes a habit.
I spend a lot time of writing about senior life and working on ways to continue to be active and healthy for my body and mind. It’s a lot of work, but let’s face it: what’s the alternative? Makes me shiver.
www.sharonstrawhandgarner.com
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